


Dove

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Good Omens
Genre: Birds, Canon Scene, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Crowley brought a dove back to life.His reasons. And an afternoon in the life of Aziraphale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gingercrawford on tumblr wanted fic about Crowley breathing the dove back to life because

Crowley didn’t remember heaven, not really anyway, and maybe that was why the space between life and death looked so different to him then it did to Aziraphale. 

Or maybe it was a sense of how fleeting anything physical was if you left it to its own devices. It was something he fervently ignored. If a watch could run without batteries, a car without fuel, a refrigerator without being plugged into the wall, that was how he would have it. Anything to deflect the relentless small incisions that entropy made into daily life. Getting rid of his plants at the first sign that a wilt was irrevocable… Replacing his iPhone before Apple, that marvelously ironic company, enacts his instructions to slow it down. 

Dorothy Sayers once wrote “Twenty-three years ago I fed these identical ducks with these identical sandwiches. How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks?” But they weren’t identical ducks, Crowley thought, and not identical sandwiches either. Crowley remembered the invention of the sandwich. It had been invented at least twice. And birds lived far too close to mortality for him to think too hard about it. Massive continuity of ducks. Maybe that was why they kept coming back. The Royal Parks had replaced the fence in the past century. It was shorter now. Crowley could step over it easily, the angel had a bit of a harder time.

It was hard not to see yourself in the birds. Or people you knew. The pigeons that walked quickly on injured feet, the direct, hungry stare of an English goose. The heron fishing someone’s soggy chip out of the mud at the edge of the water.

Crowley didn’t ask where Aziraphale got the dove. He didn’t ask if he’d used doves before, while he was sleeping. If anything had happened to any of them. He didn’t point out that this little bird in the cheap wire cage was theoretically descended from the one that brought Noah the olive branch. Any of those would involve acknowledging that the angel’s magician gig was actually happening. 

He knew he wasn’t going to look after it. Unless you were a book, or very persistent, you weren’t going to be able to hold Aziraphale’s attention for more than a couple of hours. He should have guessed that he was going to forget about it. 

Crowley almost forgot about it as well. But when Aziraphale dismissively pulled the bird out of his sleeve, dead or dying, the hellhound could wait. Even if the end of the world was imminent, this little bird didn’t deserve to draw its last breath crushed against Aziraphale’s forearm. Worse ways to go, Crowley thought, picking up the dove. 

It felt incredibly fragile, soft and still warm. Crowley was once an angel, even if the dove was beyond mortal help he might be able to save it. He put his mouth over the bird’s beak and breathed five short breaths into the little creature. He paused to see if he’d had the intended effect. It had started breathing on its own. The dove cooed up at him and then, he could almost swear, bent its neck back to shoot a disapproving glare at Aziraphale before trepidatiously achieving liftoff and flying away. 

Crowley smiled. Then walked around to the other side of the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Dove in the sleeve. That was what Houdini had done, wasn’t it? Or was it a top hat? Or a fan tailed pigeon? Aziraphale lifted the felt cover on the cage, keeping the bird in the dark, and wriggled it into the arm of his suit jacket. It wasn’t too irritating.

He looked in the mirror, the eyeliner mustache on his upper lip was suitably mysterious and jocund, he thought. Crowley peered nervously over his shoulder, tugging at the edge of his waistcoat. It was an actual waiter uniform, not something he had fabricated.

‘You look nice, my dear.’

Crowley sighed. Aziraphale placed his top hat on his head and inspected how it fit over his curls. It had been a long time. Too long since he had last done magic, but he had been practicing. A ring trick, a coin trick, a vanishing handkerchief… Almost his whole repertoire.

It helped to put what was happening out of his mind. Misdirection, slight of hand, pretend. All of that could be important. It had a formula, it made people happy. At least that was the plan.

Maybe he shouldn’t have given the party entertainers quite so strong a virus, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Very little would matter if they didn’t pull this off. Or perhaps everything would.

These weren’t the best thoughts for assuaging pre-show nerves and the skeptical yellow eyes in the corner of his visual field weren’t helping either.

Aziraphale materialized a glass and reached over to the faucet to pour himself some water- After all, it was only half cheating-

Crowley wordlessly took the glass from his hand before he could reach the sink and guided his arm back to his side at a ninety degree angle. This maximized the breathing space the dove had, but Aziraphale didn’t think of this until several weeks later.

Crowley glumly passed the glass of water to Aziraphale’s left hand.

‘Break legs,’ he said sarcastically.

‘It’s just a bunch of kids, how hard could it be?’

‘Famous last words.’

It was, of course, disastrous.

There was a sympathetic soul it the audience, but it wasn’t human or Antichrist, and it was much older than eleven.

As they fled the scene, Aziraphale became conscious of something limp and feathery inside his jacket. Awkwardly trying to extricate the alarmingly squishy bird, Aziraphale found deft fingers holding his sleeve, grasping the body of the dove and removing it, as though the demon was maybe not so bad with animals after all.

Aziraphale saw his own reflection in Crowley’s sunglasses. Hat squashed curls and ridiculous mustache, suit smeared with whipped cream and an expression of irritation that only added to the farce of the ensemble.

Crowley was still soaked and his borrowed clothes clung to his skin, but it was with profound grace that he brought the little bird to his mouth and gave it breath.


End file.
